Posted
by
timothyon Thursday January 03, 2013 @06:01PM
from the use-a-catapult dept.

alphadogg writes "Results from the early application rounds at the nation's best technical colleges indicate that it will be another excruciatingly difficult year for high school seniors to get accepted into top-notch undergraduate computer science and engineering programs. Leading tech colleges reported a sharp rise in early applications, prompting them to be more selective in choosing prospective freshmen for the Class of 2017. Many colleges are reporting lower acceptance rates for their binding early decision and non-binding early action admissions programs than in previous years. Here's a roundup of stats from MIT, Stanford and others."

yeah, not a big deal. So you didn't get into MIT CS department, so what... go to a community college and then transfer to a state uni. All that matters is that you have a CS degree, that's enough to open any door as long as you actually know how to code.

Actually looking more closely at TFA, much of the low acceptance rate for Stanford and MIT can also be attributed to the fact their early admissions are not binding. When I played the application game in highschool, I applied to a single dream school early admission and saved the rest of my apps for when that decision came in. In this case, you can apply to MIT *and* Stanford early admission, and maybe any other schools that do this, effectively giving you two rounds of decisions.

Either way, the "reach" school concept applies, because you always want to apply to your reach school as early decision. That way you know early if you don't get in and can apply to some other reach schools for regular admissions.

Plenty. And if you include attending without graduating, it's even more. Attending may actually be more important than actually graduating, as networking (the social skill, not the technology) is critical to business success.